February 2012

February 25, 2012

Last September, my report on a day out in Java was illustrated with the output from my new Sony a55 digital SLR camera (although strictly, it’s not an SLR because it uses Sony’s remarkable translucent mirror technology) – it’s an amazing camera that I’m still learning about. I bought it along with a superb Sony all-purpose wide-angle to telephoto lens, but recently became seduced by the idea that another lens might broaden my scope further – I settled on a macro. Now these things don’t come cheap, but Minolta’s AF 100mm/2.8 macro had excellent reviews and, given that it is now discontinued, could be found on the secondhand market. Now in Indonesia, that’s an interesting market, and an Indonesian photography enthusiast (a slight understatement) friend located several available possibilities and proceeded to negotiate on my behalf – for several weeks. The result was a very acceptable and reasonable price for what is a great piece of kit – it is a genuine 1:1 macro lens. For those interested, here’s the camera and the lens:

Now shooting with a macro takes some learning and experimenting, and I am just beginning. But as you might have guessed, one of the subjects I was interested in experimenting with is – yes, sand. And above are some initial results – a local selection, clockwise from top left: Bako (Sarawak), Bali (Cemagi), Bali (Jimbaran), Komodo, Satonda (Sumbawa), Satonda again, and, centre, Lombok. This is a reasonably high resolution image, so click on it to see more detail. I’m reasonably pleased as a start; I have been well advised by Siim Sepp’s excellent macro-photography post on his Sand Atlas blog. I had tried to get hold of a remote shutter release for the camera (even with a tripod, pressing the shutter vibrates the camera), but with no success – but I found a very clever suggestion on a photography website – just use the self-timer.

February 18, 2012

Geometrically, geomechanically, and geomorphologically, the pyramid is a natural shape that reflects a stable response in the constant conflict between landscape construction and erosion. The stability of this shape has been exploited by humans for a long time, by many different cultures, and in many different forms – although it even took the ancient Egyptians some experimentation to get the angles right for optimum stability (see at least one of the possible reasons behind the strange geometry of the “Bent Pyramid,” otherwise known as “Sneferu’s snafu”).

But the problem is that, if you are one of those people who ignore reason and geomechanics, preferring exotic and bizarre hypotheses that can be portrayed as offering the delicious excitement of presenting a challenge to conventional science (as if it didn’t have enough already), then you see man-made pyramids everywhere: landforms that are “too pyramidal in shape to be a natural occurrence.” And, of course, there are a lot of those people around. That quote is from “a special staff member to the [Indonesian] president on social affairs and disaster management.” For yes, the news is that we have ancient pyramids here in Java, structures that are “older than the Giza pyramid” and demonstrate “that civilization in Indonesia had begun much earlier than currently assumed.”

One of these, Mount Sadahurip in West Java (shown in the photo above) is a typical candidate, and the focus of intensive geotechnical and archaeological investigations that, amongst other results, have encountered mysterious buried layers of sand that have been cited as showing textural evidence for human sieving, or as demonstrating tsunami protection engineering. Great revelations are waiting not far below the surface that will completely re-write history.

Now, excuse, please, my scepticism, but the foundations of Java and its landscapes are chains of volcanoes – well illustrated by the photo of Mount Sadahurip. What are those things in the background – more pyramids? Java must represent the greatest concentration of pyramids in the world. The terraced appearance, of course, cannot possibly be related to agriculture exploiting layered lava flows. The pyramid shape cannot be natural – something must be buried beneath. The words “Indonesian pyramids” in Google opens a portal into a parallel universe.

So far so entertaining and apparently harmless. But unfortunately there’s another, potentially tragic, side to all this. Here’s the article from yesterday’s Jakarta Globe:

A presidential staff member is trying to convince three ministries to support a team of scientists who want to look into rumors of pyramids lying beneath West Java’s Mount Sadahurip and Mount Padang. Andi Arief, a special staff member to the president on social affairs and disaster management, set up a meeting on Friday to discuss the issues. In attendance were members of the so-called Ancient Catastrophic Studies Team, led by seismologist Danny Hilman, and representatives from the ministries of tourism, research and technology, and education and culture. Andi said there had also been informal meetings between the team and officials from the Tourism Ministry. The ministries, he said, could bring much-needed expertise, equipment and funding to help bring the project to fruition. Finding pyramids in Indonesia, Hilman said, would rewrite the history of the archipelago, and possibly the world. “We could prove that our ancient civilizations were much more advanced than previously believed, even long before the Majapahit,” he said referring to one of the archipelago’s oldest and biggest known kingdoms. “We [showed ministry officials] geological and geophysical research, which indicate that ancient ruins lie beneath the mountains,” he said. Teguh Rahardjo, deputy minister for research and technology, said his office would look into the findings before deciding whether to get involved in the project. “But of course we support this kind of research,” he said. The team, Andi said, had initially set out to conduct geological research rather than find pyramids. He said that the idea of looking for pyramids had come about after adventure travel company Geotrek Indonesia pointed out that Mount Sadahurip, located in Garut district, was too pyramidal in shape to be a natural occurrence. Not everybody has bought into the pyramid theory. Sujatmiko, a geologist from the Indonesian Geological Experts Association, said he thought Sadahurip had formed naturally. The mountain is located on a dominant volcanic line in West Java, and Sujatmiko said it had formed as a pyroclastic volcanic mound out of magma that emerged from the earth’s surface without a typical magma channel beneath. I Gde Pitana, acting director general of the Tourism Ministry, has said the notion that Indonesia’s history might have included pyramids was implausible. There are enough mountains here that there was no need to build tall structures for worship, he said. Pitana said his ministry had asked several universities to conduct tests and research on the site to see if the Sadahurip structure was man-made or natural. The findings, he said, conflicted with each other. And that should give the pyramid hunters reason to hope.

The resources being devoted to this lunacy, with the encouragement of the authorities, are those whose real remit is disaster mitigation. The idea that research into tsunamis and earthquakes from the historic and pre-historic records can shed light on managing for the future – and saving lives – is well founded and based on good science. One of my earliest blog posts was on such work following the 2004 Sumatran earthquake, and I wrote a couple of posts in the context of the Japanese catastrophe. This kind of work is vital, and to fritter away time, money and expertise that should be devoted to it on chasing pyramid dreams is inexcusable.

But then, for any pyramid hallucinators who have arrived on this post, here are some more that I encountered in Egypt’s Western Desert.

STOP PRESS: adenda and corrigenda

Since writing this, I have been approached by two friends with helpful comments and clarifications:

1. An Indonesian geologist friend has pointed out the confusion in the media reports. Gunung (Mount) Padang, referred to in the article quoted, is a genuine archaeological site, with megalithic structures (the largest such site in South East Asia), that continues to be investigated both archaeologically and geologically. Coring has revealed sand layers that seem difficult to explain. This site has been muddled in the pyramid fever with the yet-to-be-investigated Gunung Sadahurip and Gunung Lalakon, neither of which bear much resemblance to Gunung Padang.

2. An American friend (a stickler for objectivity and accuracy) has felt compelled to write to me on the Bent Pyramid controversy. It seems that the timing of the change of angle coincides with the spectacular collapse of the nearby Meidum Pyramid whose descent into a pile of rubble resulted from poor construction standards, including the fact that much of it was built on a foundation of compacted sand (so yes, blame the sand). It did not collapse because it was too steep. Nevertheless, this struck fear into the Egyptians, who, clever though they were, were not at that point mathematically advanced. Then there's also the possibility that the Bent Pyramid was taking too long, Sneferu might have been getting a sense of mortality (or diminishing funds), and lowering the angle enabled the thing to be finished quickly.

[There are, of course, any number of rational voices here echoing my doubts about the ancient pyramids of Java – see, for example, this earlier article from the Jakarta Globe; however, all the signs are that the project will continue.]

February 14, 2012

This time, imagine that you're a scorpion, a fattail scorpion to be precise (sorry, but I never said anything about this role-playing being about cuddly and loveable, handsome or cute, but it’s often critters from the less celebrated realms of the animal kingdom that demonstrate the most remarkable skills). You are going about your desert business, scurrying across the sand in search of something to slaughter, when a sandstorm blows up. What should you do? Quickly seek shelter, bury yourself in the sand? Absolutely no need if you’re Androctonus australis, because you, unlike much of the world’s mechanised military, have developed an extraordinarily clever resistance to windblown sand. Blasting that can frost a windshield, clog up a filter, render many moving parts unmoving, never mind erode rocks, simply blows by you – sand off a scorpion’s back.

The yellow fattail scorpion (Androctonus australis) is an unpleasant creature, growing up to 10 cms in length, and capable of an envenomation that is dangerously and mortally toxic. But on their backs, they carry a bionic shield against sand abrasion, an exoskeleton that has bumps and grooves, the design of which cunningly deflects flying sand grains (illustration above, right).

All this has been recently revealed by a group of researchers at the Key Laboratory of Bionic Engineering, Jilin University, China, and published by the American Chemical Society. Erosion Resistance of Bionic Functional Surfaces Inspired from Desert Scorpions describes how these scorpions use microtextures to achieve erosion resistance, and how the researchers used Computational Fluid Dynamics to understand how these patterns work. The results have significant implications for the mechanised military (not to mention, perhaps, Toyota and Land Rover). Here’s the account from Science Daily:

Taking inspiration from the yellow fattail scorpion, which uses a bionic shield to protect itself against scratches from desert sandstorms, scientists have developed a new way to protect the moving parts of machinery from wear and tear.

A report on the research appears in ACS' journal Langmuir.

Zhiwu Han, Junqiu Zhang, Wen Li and colleagues explain that "solid particle erosion" is one of the important reasons for material damage or equipment failure. It causes millions of dollars of damage each year to helicopter rotors, rocket motor nozzles, turbine blades, pipes and other mechanical parts. The damage occurs when particles of dirt, grit and other hard material in the air, water or other fluids strike the surfaces of those parts. Filters can help remove the particles but must be replaced or cleaned, while harder, erosion-resistant materials cost more to develop and make. In an effort to develop better erosion-resistant surfaces, Han and Li's group sought the secrets of the yellow fattail scorpion for the first time. The scorpion evolved to survive the abrasive power of harsh sandstorms.

They studied the bumps and grooves on the scorpions' backs, scanning the creatures with a 3-D laser device and developing a computer program that modeled the flow of sand-laden air over the scorpions. The team used the model in computer simulations to develop actual patterned surfaces to test which patterns perform best. At the same time, the erosion tests were conducted in the simple erosion wind tunnel for groove surface bionic samples at various impact conditions. Their results showed that a series of small grooves at a 30-degree angle to the flowing gas or liquid give steel surfaces the best protection from erosion.

So just orient yourself appropriately to the wind, and scuttle off on your evil way.

[See also the Physorg.com report. Oh, and Richard, “envenomation” was especially for you…]

February 09, 2012

Imagine for a moment, if you will – or can – that you’re a coral. You find yourself in the lap of luxury, ensconced on a cosy bed of sand in a carefully maintained aquarium, far from the vicissitudes of life on the sea floor. And then, suddenly, this wretched scientist comes along and throws a pile of sand in, completely burying you. You’re entombed alive - what are you to do?Well, if you’re a fungiid, you simply shrug it off.

Of all the amazing things that I come across in this amazing world, the most startling are nearly always from new revelations about life on this planet. Whether it’s the constant discovery of new species, the seemingly daily expansion of the known limits for extremophiles, or simply how critters do stuff that we never realised they could, the news continues. And it is, of course, a couple of recent discoveries about how critters deal with sand problems that have caught my eye, and I will begin with a report that I just happened to see yesterday on the BBC News website, Corals inflate to escape being buried alive in sand. I have long ceased to be astounded by the frequency with which my favourite topic appears prominently in the mainstream media, but this is quite extraordinary.

For a start, if you think (like I did) of corals as static, colourful and sculptural installations on the sea floor, to be wondered at while snorkelling and protected from human depredations, then you’d be wrong. Some corals move. They may do it slowly and sedately, but they move – and the fungiidae, the so-called “mushroom corals” are the prime exponents of this skill.

So that’s a start – having been buried alive, you’re relieved to find that you’re a fungiid, capable of movement. But even so, just any old movement will hardly be sufficient to rid yourself of this burden of sand. So you flex yourself a little – and wow! You can do pulsed inflation! A few grains cascade from the pile, the burden is slightly relieved and you have even managed to get a couple of your cilia protruding above the sand. You pulse inflate again….

“Enough!” I can distinctly hear you exclaiming, dear reader, and you are quite right, enough of this anthropomorphised coral role-playing. Rather, first of all, just go to the BBC link above and watch the time-lapse animation there – it is absolutely extraordinary. It’s the work of Dr. Pim Bongaerts and his colleagues in Australia and the Netherlands, the evil scientists who buried the poor coral, and you can read - and reproduce - the authors’ personal copy of the paper here. It begins as follows:

Sedimentation represents a major stressor for scleractinian corals. Although many coral species exhibit the capacity of active sediment rejection (Stafford-Smith and Ormond 1992), only few are capable of freeing themselves after becoming completely buried. Fungiid corals appear to be an exception, as they can remove sediments through substantial polyp inflation (up to five times their normal size) in addition to mucus entanglement and ciliary action… Using time-lapse photography (speeding up time 300x), we observed that this inflation occurs in rhythmic pulses, allowing corals to completely exhume themselves after becoming covered in sand.

Ok, it’s speeded up (although really not that much) but, if you’ve already watched it, I hope that you share my astonishment. The complexity of what these apparently simple and passive critters are doing is mind-boggling - “mucus entanglement” and “ciliary action” don’t really convey what’s going on (although they are consistent with the science fiction image that comes to mind of this happening at full speed and on a large scale….).

It really is a wonderful world.

[The fungiid at the head of this post is Lobactis scutaria, the one below Herpolitha limax, and the images are screenshots from large movie files downloadable here.]

February 02, 2012

The owners of otherwise delightful beachfront homes on the Oregon Coast near Waldport, Oregon, must feel like responding as the Walrus and the Carpenter did – except that their situation is much, much, more serious.

Many thanks to Howard Allen for spotting this recent report by Dan McShane on his “Reading the Washington Landscape” blog. It shows homes literally half-buried in sand and such disastrous events were reported last year by KCBY in Coos Bend, from where the images above were taken. A winter storm had “left sand piled up to the roof level of some homes in Waldport.” But can we disengage from the human component of the equation and observe this simply as another example of naturally dynamic coastal geology? Probably not.

Inevitably on this blog, I have commented a number of times on issues of coastal processes, our attempts (generally futile) to “manage” them, and on the feedback between nature and human activities; “nourish or retreat?” was a relatively recent example, “Coastal change and saving sand - the state of the art” looked at meticulous work on this topic by the USGS and others, then there was the impact of Hurricane Irene, and a discussion of sediment budgets (and I have omitted my series of fulminations on the lunatic schemes for the Gulf Coast following the Macondo catastrophe). But I was reminded also of the publication of Orrin Pilkey’s book on beaches in August last year, when I wrote as follows:

I have referred several times in the past to Orrin H. Pilkey, James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of Geologyat Duke University. Now, together with colleagues from the US and Northern Ireland, he has published what promises to be an informative, entertaining, and provocative read - The World's Beaches: A Global Guide to the Science of the Shoreline. I haven't, of course, got my hands on a copy yet, but a review in the New York Times simply confirms that anything by Pilkey is required reading. The review is titled "Shorelines, Sandy or Otherwise, That May Not Last." The conclusion echoes the issue that I posted on a couple of months ago:

But, the authors conclude, unless society chooses beaches over buildings the result will be a world in which parks like the National Seashores retain natural beaches, but beach resorts elsewhere are “heavily walled and beachless.” Rising seas will make sand-pumping operations “untenable,” they predict, and tourists will amuse themselves by “promenading on top of a seawall” — already the principal activity in too many coastal resorts. If they are right, by then the beaches this book describes will be a nostalgic memory.

The book is published by the University of California Press, to whom I will ever be grateful for publishing mine, and the New York Times review is by Cornelia Dean, whose own book, "Against the Tide: the Battle for America's Beaches," also falls into the required reading category.

Now the hazards of owning a beachfront home in Waldport Oregon remind us dramatically that it’s not simply shifting shorelines that are impacted by human activity (and, regardless, represent an entirely natural threat). Invariably, when beachfronts are developed, the first things to go are the dunes (after all, they obstruct the view). But dunes are an integral and vital part of the shoreline system – remove them and that system is destabilised. Once destabilised, it is then vulnerable (as are properties) to windblown movement of sand on a massive scale.

Being, as ever, curious, I went online to try to find more on coastal dynamics at Waldport. I’m sure there are more recent studies, but this piece of work from 1975 by the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries proved fascinating and more than sufficient: "Recent Shoreline Changes of the Alsea Sandspit, Lincoln County, Oregon." Written by James Stembridge of the Department of Geography at the University of Oregon, it provides some historic portents.

The buried houses are built on a shape-shifting promontory of sand, the Alsea Sandspit, and here is a photo of it from 1975 (compare with the Google Earth images below):

And here, from that publication, is a compelling map of changes to the spit over the period from 1939 to 1975:

I have extracted some informative passages from the publication (remember, this was 37 years ago – before anything like the scale of today’s development):

Erosion of coastal sandspits has been a recognized hazard in Oregon since the demise of the resort community of Bayocean near Tillamook, which was slowly eliminated by the sea beginning in the late 1920's. Currently, the sandspit at Siletz Bay is undergoing severe erosion which is critically endangering structures along a three-mile beach front. Partially as a result of these experiences with eroding sandspits, some planning agencies, such as the Oregon Coastal Conservation and Development Commission, have considered limiting the construction of housing units on sandspits.

This study is a preliminary analysis of a third Oregon spit, the Alsea near Waldport, with respect to recent shoreline changes, human modifications, and potential impact on current and future settlement.

Unlike the Tillamook and Si letz spits, the Alsea sandspit is presently accreting at a rate as great as 10 feet per year at its southwest margin. Erosion at a rate of as much as 2 feet per year is occurring on the bay side of the spit, however, as well as along the northwestern margins of the spit, where the underlying terrace of semi-consolidated Pleistocene dune deposits is exposed to ocean wave action.

...... This main foredune is at least partially bulldozed into shape and rests at a position of up to 100 feet inland of its 1939 location. It is well stabilized with European beach grass (Ammophila arenaria), except where breached for home sites and by trails from the residential area to the surf zone. Its present height is approximately 35 feet above mean high tide level, increasing at a rate of about 0.5 feet yearly as sand accumulates in the vegetation. The extreme high tide line has moved as much as 300 feet seaward since 1939 (Figure 5). Part of this general accretion is the building of what appears to be a new foredune as much as 300 feet seaward of the 1939 foredune.... Blowing sand will continue to be a problem where the foredune has been breached and where there are expanses of unvegetated sand.

Sandspits have been described as oscillatory in that they may experience irregular cycles of erosion and deposition. If the spit at Alsea is currently prograding, the situation could reverse at any time.

Note the last two paragraphs – it seems unnecessary to say anything more. The coast is a good teacher, we are just lousy learners.